Bad Cat, Good Cat Read online

  For Paloma and David.

  Naturally.

  Contents

  1. Cat-Crazy

  2. A Bad Cat Arrives

  3. Paloma Feels Funny

  4. More Badness

  5. From Bad to Worse

  6. A Good Wash

  7. A Good Cat Arrives

  8. White Cat? Black Cat!

  9. The Second Peony

  10. Turk Does Himself No Good

  11. The Night Party

  12. A Brave Little Cat

  13. David and Paloma Have a Row

  14. Peony and Turk Make it Up

  15. Parents With a Problem

  16. Abandoned

  17. Going Feral

  18. The Lie is Discovered

  19. Where Are They?

  20. Peony in a Mess

  21. Turk To The Rescue

  22. Peony Springs a Surprise

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1. Cat-Crazy

  This is the story of two families, two children and two cats. Of course, the cats are by far the most important.

  As you’ll know, if you happen to have a cat in your family, every cat behaves as if he or she were the king or queen of the house. Cats aren’t there for people, people are there for cats. And the first cat in my story definitely believed that that was the way things should be.

  The first thing to say about this cat is that he was bad. I can’t easily tell you what a bad, bad cat he was. But I’m going to try. Because, although he was bad, I like him. And so did David. He was David’s cat. Well… David was his person.

  A word about David.

  David was crazy about cats. He’d always watched movies about cats, starting with Tom and Jerry. He’d seen The Aristocats too many times to count, and more recently he’d been given a DVD of a Japanese film with warrior cats who wore armour and fought with swords. The film was all in Japanese but David didn’t care. He made up what they were saying to each other, and dreamed of having a Wii of it so he could practise sword-fighting, cat-hero-style.

  He shared all this with Paloma, the girl who lived next door to him. Paloma was the same age as him. They were friends for one main reason: they were both cat-crazy. Her favourite books were Slinky Malinki and Orlando the Marmalade Cat.

  David was more into serious books about cats. He really knew a lot about them; about where different kinds of cat came from, and how in Egypt people thought they were gods while in England some people thought they weren’t gods at all, but devils and witches’ helpers.

  He found all this wonderfully exciting, and it was very good for his reading. These books were quite grown-up and had long words in them. But that was good too, because David and Paloma collected words, and especially cat-words. His favourite at the moment was ‘cat-aclysm’, but he also liked ‘catacomb’. He knew what they meant, too (something very bad happening to a cat, and an underground place for dead cats).

  On birthdays he often got given books about cats. But as his next birthday came close, his parents asked him an important question.

  “You can choose between two big presents,” his dad said. “One is a Wii.”

  A Wii! His dream! He couldn’t imagine anything he’d like better.

  “Oh, yes, please!” he said excitedly.

  “Well, but wait. The other thing you might want is a cat.”

  David stood there, his mouth open. He’d asked for a cat so often, and the answer had always been No.

  “A real cat?”

  “Yes. We think you’re old enough now to take care of it.”

  David was speechless. A cat was something he felt he didn’t just want. He needed it. The Wii of his dreams just floated away. From then till his birthday, all he dreamed about was his cat that was coming.

  2. A Bad Cat Arrives

  The cat arrived on his birthday.

  When David first saw him, he was so happy he couldn’t move or speak. He just stood there gazing. Out of the carry-box came a snow-white cat with long, silky fur. He stalked out of the little gate, his tail unfolded and stuck up straight. When he saw David, he stood still and gazed back. He had blue eyes.

  He was the most beautiful creature David had ever seen.

  “Are you pleased with him?” his dad asked.

  David shook his head. Shaking your head usually means no, but in this case it meant, “I’m so pleased I don’t know what to say.” He just silently hugged his mum and then his dad and then bent down, picked up the cat, and tried to hug him too.

  Now, I’m not going to start making excuses for this cat. But David just might have hugged him too tight. In any case, the cat reached up a pawful of claws and scratched David on the nose. (I did tell you he was bad.)

  “OW!” shouted David, and dropped him. This didn’t bother the cat, who landed on all four feet and began to run round and round the living room like a mad thing.

  All three of them tried to catch him, but he was too quick for them. He was like a streak of white lightning. When they cornered him near the window, he leaped up on to the sofa, and then on to anarmchair, and from the back of that, on to the mantelpiece.

  His long fluffy tail was switching dangerously. It knocked over a vase, which fell to the floor and smashed into a hundred bits. Don’t even ask about the water and flowers that were in it.

  David’s mum was very upset. “Oh, you bad cat!” she cried.

  The noise of the crash had upset the cat too. When she reached for him, he thought, I’m for it! She’s going to hit me!

  He put his ears back, his mouth made a pink diamond, and he looked like a snake. He hissed. If she hadn’t backed off, he’d have bitten her.

  David thought he was magnificent, like a little tiger, or one of the god-cats in Egyptian wall paintings.

  “Shhhhh, shhhhh!” said David. “Don’t be angry!” He reached up and lifted the cat off the mantelpiece. (The cat knew at once that this one wasn’t going to hit him.) David stroked his fur gently. “I’m going to take you to meet Paloma,” he said.

  David’s dad said, “Be careful he doesn’t run away.”

  David looked at him in horror. “Run away? Why should he?”

  “Just be careful. If you’re going out the front, keep hold of him. He doesn’t know that he lives here yet.”

  3. Paloma Feels Funny

  David carefully carried the cat out to the road and down the path leading to Paloma’s house.

  A word about Paloma.

  Paloma didn’t collect dolls. Just soft-toy cats. They all had names and they all had different personalities. She played endless games with them.

  She couldn’t persuade David to play with her toy cats, but they talked cats whenever they met. David told her lots of interesting facts about cats from his books, and they collected cat words together. Paloma liked ‘cat-alogue’ (a book that listed cats), ‘cat-aract’ (a waterfall made of cats) and ‘cat-erpillar’ (a pillar shaped like a cat). She liked drawing these last two.

  Her un-favourite cat word was ‘caterwaul’, which means loud cat-like crying. She didn’t like that one because her dad sometimes said she was doing it when really she was just having a little cry, like you do.

  When the doorbell rang, she ran to answer it. She knew it was David because he had a special ring. Ding… ding-ding-diiiing. She was glad it was him, but when she opened the door, she got a shock.

  There in his arms was the most beautiful cat she’d ever seen.

  “Is… is it yours?” she asked.

  “Yes! He’s my best birthday present!” said David. She had never seen him looking so happy.

  And no wonder, she thought. White. Fluffy. Blue eyes. A real, real cat. And so special!

  Paloma didn’t say anything. She had
a funny feeling. You can probably guess what it was. She had to bite her lip to keep the feeling inside. She reached out her hand and stroked the white cat. It had the softest fur, softer than any of her toy cats.

  “I want one just like that,” she said in a very small voice. “And I know what I’ll call it.”

  “What?”

  “Peony.”

  David had never heard that word before. But he liked the sound of it.

  “That’s a great name,” he said. “I’m going to call my cat Peony.”

  “But I’m going to call my cat Peony!” said Paloma.

  “So?” said David.

  Paloma’s funny feeling got funnier. I mean, stronger. She still didn’t let the feeling out, even though she was very sure she didn’t want David to call his cat Peony. But she was afraid to say so in case the feeling burst out. She backed away from David and closed the front door without even saying goodbye.

  Outside the door, David stood frowning. Why had Paloma done that? It wasn’t like her. He thought of doing their special ring again, but he decided not to, and began carrying his cat back home.

  On the way, he tried out the new name.

  “Peony. Peony? Hallo! That’s your name – Peony!”

  The cat wasn’t listening. He was looking around. He liked what he saw. Openness. Freedom. Adventure!

  So it happened that David very nearly lost his cat on the first day, because, as he turned into his own gate, the cat jumped right out of his arms and made off along the pavement.

  David was so shocked he couldn’t move at first. But then he saw the cat stop running. He stood for a moment, looking around, his tail waving. This meant he wasn’t sure of himself, and somehow David knew this.

  David did absolutely the right thing. He didn’t chase after him. He walked very quietly to where he was and made a noise like “shh-wshh-wshh…” The cat turned his head to look (Hmmm, interesting noise…), but he didn’t run away. Very slowly and carefully, David got close enough, and picked him up.

  The cat thought, Not yet. I won’t run away yet. This is all too strange.

  So he didn’t struggle, and David, feeling relief as sharp as pain, carried him home, stroking and talking to him all the way.

  Meanwhile, Paloma managed not to let her feeling out until she was alone in her bedroom. She buried her face in an armful of toy cats and made them damp. But after a bit, she thought, “If David’s got a cat, maybe Mummy and Daddy will let me have one.”

  That made her feel better. She felt sorry now that she hadn’t been nicer to David about his cat. “After all,” she thought, “it is his birthday.” She got up from the bed and went to her table and began to make him a birthday card.

  With a cat on it, of course. Paloma was very good at drawing cats. She loved doing the blue eyes.

  4. More Badness

  When David told his parents he was going to call his cat Peony, his father burst out laughing.

  “That’s a funny name for a cat!”

  “It’s a very funny name for that cat,” said his mother. “It’s a boy cat, and Peony is the name of a flower.”

  That made David stop. But only for a moment. He could be quite stubborn when he’d made up his mind. “He won’t know that,” he said.

  But it seemed as if the cat did know he’d been given a really un-boysy name. Because, when David put him down and said, “You like your new name, don’t you?” the cat showed what he felt about it by peeing on the floor.

  David’s mum gave a shriek. “Get that cat out of here!”

  David took his cat into the other room and sat him on his knee, stroking him. He seemed to like it best when David did a long, slow stroke from his head to the beginning of his tail, and then gave his tail a very gentle pull.

  While he stroked, David thought hard. “Paloma wants to call her cat Peony when she gets one,” he said. “Maybe I’d better change your name,” David said.

  “Would you mind?”

  His cat purred loudly. Frankly, he couldn’t have cared less.

  “Shall I just call you Tom, because you’re a tomcat?” David wondered.

  But ‘Tom’ was too ordinary for such a special cat. Carrying his cat over his shoulder, he went to look at his cat book.

  He’d already found a picture in it of a cat very like his – white, fluffy, with blue eyes. Now he read what was written under the picture. It said, “A typical Van cat from Turkey.”

  “Van,” said David. “Van? No, I might as well call you Bus or Truck.” But then he thought, Turkey. Turk. Turk! He liked ‘Turk’. He loved ‘ Turk’! You couldn’t have a more boysy name than that, and it wasn’t ordinary, either!

  “That’s it!” he shouted. “Turk! That’s your name! Here, Turk, come to me, Turk, Turk!”

  Turk – and that’s his name from now on – gave his tail a shake, and peed on the carpet, just as David’s mum walked in.

  “That’s it!” she screamed. She picked the cat up by the skin on his neck and carried him through to the garden.

  “There,” she said. “That’s where good cats pee – outside!” And she slammed the back door.

  “Mum!” cried David. “You said don’t let him loose outside before he knows where he lives!”

  “He’s got to get trained,” she said. “I’m not having him peeing in the house. No, David, leave him now, he’ll be safe enough in the garden.” And she shooed him upstairs to do his homework.

  5. From Bad to Worse

  Imagine how unwilling David was to leave Turk out there alone!

  Turk, however, didn’t mind at all. He strolled around exploring, and soon found out how to get over the wall into the next garden. Which was the garden of Paloma’s house.

  Paloma happened to be looking out through the French window of her kitchen, and saw him.

  “Look, Mummy!” she said. “There’s David’s new cat! I do wish I had a cat. Couldn’t I, Mummy, please, please, please?”

  “We’ll think about it,” her mum said. She went out and shooed Turk back over the wall.

  Turk started scratching around. He found some nice soft earth where David’s dad had been planting new plants. He soon managed to dig them all up in order to make a nice, comfortable loo.

  Turk felt very pleased with himself. He rolled around among the scratched-up plants, and got very earthy. Then he started to wash himself, but that was boring, and he didn’t like the taste of earth. So he stopped, and decided he was hungry.

  He stalked a beetle, but when he caught it, he thought, Yuck! Then he saw a bird on the lawn. It looked to him like a roast chicken would to you. He chased it, but it flew away.

  That made him hungrier than ever. He went and stood outside the back door and meowed very loudly. Boy cats are good at that.

  David hadn’t been doing much homework. Now he belted down the stairs to let his cat in.

  “Good cat, you do know where you live!” he said. He didn’t even notice how dirty the cat was, because who cares about a bit of dirt?

  Turk meowed and twined himself round David’s legs. It was a lovely feeling. David showed him where his bowls were and put some dry food into one of them. His mum and dad had told him very firmly that it was his job to feed his cat, and this first time was thrilling. He had a cat that peed and ate and went outdoors and came back! A real, live, living, breathing, eating, peeing cat! He suddenly realised that watching Aristocats again and again was silly. Even armoured Japanese warrior cats were silly compared to this.

  When Turk had cleaned out the bowl, he actually put both front paws up on David’s knees. David thought he was saying thank you. Or even, perhaps, I’m yours and I love you. He stroked Turk’s head and wanted to shout for joy.

  (I hate to tell you this, but what Turk was actually saying at this stage was, Good grub, got any more? Unfortunately, this person didn’t seem to understand simple cat language. The head-stroking was nice, though.)

  Turk now made a complete tour of the house. He wanted to pick out his favour
ite sleeping spot. This turned out to be at the foot of David’s bed, which had a white duvet on it. By the time David came to bed that night, full of birthday cake and carrying presents, he found he had a half-white and half-grey duvet.

  Did he care? Not a bit. He was so excited that his cat wanted to sleep with him! But he wasn’t stupid. When his mum called up the stairs to see if David wanted her to come and kiss him goodnight, he called back, “No, Mum, don’t bother, I’m OK!”

  But, of course, she saw the grey duvet in the morning. It was a lot greyer by then.

  “That’s it!” she said. “I’m making a rule! That Cat is Not Allowed on the Beds!”

  Oh, well. Mothers make rules, and cats break them, and that’s that. Over the next few days, Turk tried out all the beds in the house and made dents lined with earth and white hairs in all of them. The more David’s mum chased him off, the more he sneaked up and jumped on the beds some more.

  In fact, he jumped on chairs, sofas, tables and shelves, any time he felt like it, leaving dirty paw-marks everywhere. Keeping him off the kitchen units became a serious problem. Especially when there was any food about. Turk seemed to think stolen people-food was much nicer than what went into his bowl.

  After Turk stole half a chicken while the family was eating the other half in the dining room, David’s mother nearly went spare.

  “That cat is a bandit!” she cried, and chased Turk outdoors for the night.

  Turk did something else too. Something boy cats do. He sprayed. It’s not quite the same as peeing, but very like it. The smell is awful, and very hard to get out. One night Turk sprayed David’s school-bag. It stank all day at school – even the teacher noticed it and went round scowling and saying, “If anyone thinks that’s funny…” Not that David minded. He told everyone to have a sniff – he explained it was the scent his cat put on things to mark his territory.